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Meet the Veterans: Mark Murphy

UMB is fortunate to have several veterans on our team, and we’re proud to hire veterans in our local communities. This series highlights some of our associates who have served their country in the military prior to joining UMB.

Q&A with Mark Murphy, Captain, Field Artillery, United States Army

Tell us about yourself.I was born in Lancaster, Ohio, a town of approximately 40,000 people located just south of Columbus, Ohio. As much as I enjoyed Lancaster while growing up, I always knew I wanted to leave and experience more dynamic settings. I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship from the University of Southern California (USC) where I studied film.

My time at USC was entertaining, but by the end of my senior year, I had lost interest in working in Hollywood. With the assistance of one of my history professors, I secured a position teaching English for the Japanese government. I not only worked alongside Japanese, but other Americans, Canadians, Australians and Britons. When my teaching contract ended, I headed back to the United States, and immediately attempted to join the Navy, but ultimately ended up in the Army.

Why did you choose to join the military?Since childhood, I’ve been fascinated by history and international relations, so joining the military seemed like a natural extension of both these interests. Also, most of my relatives are veterans, so the military culture was never alien to me.

Give us some highlights about your military career.After completing approximately 18 months of initial training in Georgia and Oklahoma, I was assigned to the Second Infantry Division in Camp Hovey, South Korea. I was there less than eight months when our entire brigade (approximately 4,000 personnel) was deployed to the Al-Anbar Province in western Iraq. We landed in Kuwait in August 2004, spent a few weeks training and acclimating to the oven-like temperatures, and then convoyed to neighboring Iraq.

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Our brigade operated out of the provincial capital Ramadi, which in the weeks after our arrival deteriorated into one of the most violent cities in the world. The artillery battery I belonged to was responsible for providing 24/7 security to a sector on the outskirts of the city. We spent several hours a day patrolling the streets and markets, frequently stopping to establish a temporary traffic checkpoint or interview locals about the situation. Some nights we would conduct raids on suspected insurgent hideouts.

The first month was relatively calm, but in October the insurgent activity spiked dramatically, and we started taking a number of casualties. Improvised explosive devices (IEDs), snipers and suicide bombers were the main culprits. The latter were the scariest because there is very little you can do to deter someone who is already trying to kill themselves.

By the end of the tour our brigade had suffered 68 killed and several hundred wounded. Our artillery battery lost six soldiers to combat and another to suicide—plus five more that were so seriously wounded they had to be evacuated to a military hospital in Germany. It was eerie to return to our barracks after one of our people had been killed and find all of their possessions arranged exactly how they had left them only a few hours before.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the hardships endured by the residents of Ramadi. To this day, I am not sure how they managed to go about their daily lives while thousands of strangers —American troops, Iraqi insurgents, and foreign jihadists—roamed the city streets trying to kill one another in increasingly creative and destructive ways.

After the tour, the Army didn’t return us to South Korea, but instead sent us to Fort Carson, located in Colorado Springs, Colo. This proved to be a much more agreeable setting than Ramadi. The following year I left the Army, and headed to Cusco, Peru to attend an intensive, Spanish language immersion school.

How did you come to be at UMB? What made you want to work here?I was enrolled in the Executive MBA program at Washington University in St. Louis. One of my classmates, Steve Marin, had recently retired from the Air Force and secured a position at UMB. UMB had an excellent reputation in the community and the financial industry seemed to offer good opportunities. With Steve’s assistance I applied, and was lucky enough to be hired.

What about your past shaped who you are today?My personality, behavior, beliefs and interests are largely a product of the following influences: the Midwest, East Asia, Catholic school, National Geographic, nature, libraries, Hollywood and the military. Put them all in a blender, hit “mix,” and the resulting concoction will resemble me.

Mark Murphy is the UDAAP Compliance Analyst for UMB. He is responsible for reviewing marketing materials, performing product reviews, and creating and maintaining UDAAP focused risk assessments. Mark joined UMB in 2015. He is a 2014 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis’ Executive MBA program, and also holds degrees from the University of Kansas and the University of Southern California.

There are a lot of organizations that would love to be where we are. Many banks in our size category are trying to figure out how we’ve done it—they would like to emulate it. What they will figure out is that you can’t create this overnight. Replicating UMB’s business model is not easy. It took this company 100 years to be excellent at it.

Quality has always been our focus. To find out more about our focus on quality, take a look at our 2013 Annual Report.

Challenges for 2014

1) Economic cycles – As much as we all desire calm waters, the norm has always been to experience economic cycles. When will the economy take a turn again? No one knows, but history teaches us that these factors do move up and down—so we can be confident that change is in our collective future.

When the economy was at the top, people were saying “It’s different this time.” When things were getting overheated, you’d constantly hear “But, it’s different this time.” It’s never different.

The good news: UMB has proven over the last century that we can thrive in all economic conditions. We have a solid balance sheet and take pride in our extraordinary credit quality and are well positioned to benefit when interest rates begin to move up.

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2) Bank regulation – The philosophy of expanding regulatory intervention is affecting all areas of our economy—primarily financial services. In the last four years, we have increased our own audit and compliance departments by 62 percent (and rising). Instead of helping, we believe that piling on more regulation passes on the higher costs of doing business to the consumer. To see the failure, you do not have to look further than Washington’s posturing about “too big to fail” banks. Far from solving that big-bank problem, since 2008, we have seen less than a dozen of the largest banks grow to control fully two-thirds of total U.S. banking assets.

The good news: Regardless of government regulations, we remind our people to stay prudent and trust the practices we have had in place for more than 100 years. We’re not followers.

The Next 100

Last year, we looked back on the 100-year history of UMB. We’ve found that although many things have changed, our founding principals have remained the same. This has allowed us to weather the storms and provide solid long-term returns to our investors. The below statistics clearly show how UMB compares to the industry.

As we head into our next 100 years, our foundation remains the same as we strive to do what’s right, not what’s popular at the moment.

We hope you’ll join us on this journey of continuing our quality story.

Mr. Kemper is the chairman and chief executive officer of UMB Financial Corporation and UMB Bank, n.a. He joined UMB in 1997. Mr. Kemper is active in both civic and philanthropic endeavors. One of the causes he is most passionate about is the arts. He currently serves as a trustee and executive committee member for the Denver Art Museum and is a past board member for The Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City.

Target Credit/Debit Card Security Breach

You may have seen the recent news that Target experienced a breach in electronic security‡ with their customers’ debit and credit cards. While UMB has security protocols in place, we ask that you remain vigilant as well. You can use our online or mobile banking options to check balances and transaction history 24/7. If you see any suspicious activity on your account, please contact our customer service associates as soon as possible. That number is 800.821.5184.

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When you click links marked with the “‡” symbol, you will leave UMB’s website and go to websites that are not controlled by or affiliated with UMB. We have provided these links for your convenience. However, we do not endorse or guarantee any products or services you may view on other sites. Other websites may not follow the same privacy policies and security procedures that UMB does, so please review their policies and procedures carefully.

UMB Financial Corporation (Nasdaq: UMBF) is a diversified financial holding company headquartered in Kansas City, Mo., offering complete banking services, payment solutions, asset servicing and institutional investment management to customers. UMB operates banking and wealth management centers throughout Missouri, Illinois, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Arizona and Texas, as well as two national specialty-lending businesses. Subsidiaries of the holding company include companies that offer services to mutual funds and alternative-investment entities and registered investment advisors that offer equity and fixed income strategies to institutions and individual investors.

A note from our CFO

This year, UMB has celebrated many achievements in reaching our 100-year milestone. One thing we are particularly proud of is our ongoing effort to be transparent in our communication.

You may have read the news articles about two specific things: depositor exiting UMB‡ and our capital raise project‡. First and foremost, I want to clearly state that these two topics are completely unrelated. Anyone who has ever been through a common stock offering knows it’s not something you can pull off in a couple of days. The timing of the two events was unfortunate, because it created incorrect assumptions. We did not execute a capital raise because of the depositor.

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To comply with securities rules related to our stock offering, we were limited in what we could say about the depositor. However, now that we are on the other side, I would like to take the opportunity to provide more context.

Depositor
A few notes on the depositor. The organization is still a UMB customer. We previously disclosed that the deposits would move over the next 120 days, and as of today, the deposits remain on our balance sheet. Additionally, the customer will continue to work with UMB on their asset servicing business even after the deposits have exited.The decision to move the deposits off of our balance sheet was a result of ongoing dialogue we have had with the customer for the past couple of years. UMB has had a longstanding risk management strategy, and during a review of potential deposit concentrations, we approached the customer to reduce their deposits. They did so, but because of continued growth in the customer’s business, the deposits began increasing again. UMB will continue to monitor our deposit concentrations and will continue to make decisions that are best for our company and our shareholders. We have multiple unique sources of deposits: Institutional Banking and Investment Services (IBIS), Fund Services and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) just to name a few, so it is important that we are continuously monitoring and adjusting as appropriate.

Capital Raise
Our company has been growing steadily over the past few years and that is evident in our financial results. We have experienced robust balance sheet growth, especially in loans. After we completed our recent forecasts, it was clear that the expectations for growth would continue. We needed to grow our capital to support our balance sheet growth. We plan to use the money raised to support our continued growth and for general corporate purposes.When I tell my kids what I’ve been up to the last couple of months, I essentially tell them that I went to New York and asked strangers and current shareholders to invest in our company. And based on our consistent and stable growth for more than 100 years, they gave us more than $200 million.A simple analogy—but it essentially describes our capital raise campaign. Also important to note, the majority of the investors are new to UMB which validates our current investors, and is a testament to the work our associates have been doing over the last century.

I hope this gives you some color to our recent news. It’s a fantastic time for UMB and I look forward to what the next 100 years will bring!

When you click links marked with the “‡” symbol, you will leave UMB’s website and go to websites that are not controlled by or affiliated with UMB. We have provided these links for your convenience. However, we do not endorse or guarantee any products or services you may view on other sites. Other websites may not follow the same privacy policies and security procedures that UMB does, so please review their policies and procedures carefully.

Mr. Hagedorn is president and chief executive officer of UMB Bank and vice chairman of UMB Financial Corporation. Prior to this role, Hagedorn served as chief financial officer and chief administrative officer of UMB Financial Corporation. He joined UMB in March 2005.

R. Crosby Kemper: Building a legacy through integrity and innovation

R. Crosby Kemper discusses the legacy of integrity and innovation at UMB. He reflects on the company’s consistent strength and stability that comes from the idea of doing what is right instead of what is popular.

UMB expands into Dallas

As we continue to grow our business, we have an exciting announcement. We are opening our first official office in Dallas, Texas! Zach Fee, UMB president of the Texas region sat down for a quick Q&A to talk about our plans.

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Why is UMB expanding to Dallas?

UMB has had clients in Texas for more than 30 years. Based on the opportunity for new growth, we felt like now was the right time to establish a permanent home and chose Dallas as our first site. Dallas is a great fit for UMB, because not only is it a top five commercial market that has strong economic activity, but its diverse business environment matches our own diverse offerings. Our new space in the Hall Arts building will put us in the center of the city’s activity and we are excited to be a part of this innovative community.

How long have you been on the ground?

I officially moved to Dallas from Kansas City with my family at the end of last year. We have six full-time associates right now and have plans to add a couple of new team members before the end of the year. We’ve been extremely humbled by the warm welcome we’ve received. The business community has welcomed us with open arms and we look forward to working closely with them.

What are the short- and long-term goals for the Dallas market?

First and foremost our focus is on building our team with local Dallas talent. The market is home to so many talented financial experts, we’ll have no trouble finding outstanding people that fit with our UMB culture. From a business perspective, we are focused on building our middle market commercial base and making an impact in the community through civic and philanthropic engagement.

We have been humbled by the Big Texas welcome we’ve received. Check out what folks are saying.

When you click links marked with the “‡” symbol, you will leave UMB’s website and go to websites that are not controlled by or affiliated with UMB. We have provided these links for your convenience. However, we do not endorse or guarantee any products or services you may view on other sites. Other websites may not follow the same privacy policies and security procedures that UMB does, so please review their policies and procedures carefully.

Mr. Fee serves as president of UMB’s Texas region and is responsible for designing and executing a strategy to establish UMB Bank in the Texas market, initially by way of Dallas. He joined UMB in 2002 and has also served as the community bank president of the UMB South Kansas City region. Fee earned Bachelor of Science with a major in Business Administration and Accounting from the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan.

UMB celebrates 100 years

Welcome to the new UMB Blog! The UMB leadership team and I plan to use this blog to communicate our ideas and perspectives in an effort to humanize an industry that struggles with a negative reputation (for good reason). We are here to remind the world that there is so much good happening in the private sector. Jobs are being created and capitalism is something to be celebrated, not feared.

As UMB celebrates its 100th anniversary, I reflect on the principles that got us here, and one thing is clear. Doing what’s right is the only option. It’s our responsibility and it is non-negotiable. I believe the values that we have followed over the last century are deeply rooted at UMB. We have had continuity of leadership and as cheesy as it sounds, our entire team is like family.

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The right thing is not always the popular choice. I’ve come to believe that what becomes popular in business is often what is easiest. We should always be suspect of easy paths. I don’t understand why, but some people can get sucked into doing what’s wrong because it’s easy. Or perhaps because it provides instant gratification.

Additionally, I find that far too often businesses hide behind the law. Just because something is “legal” does not make it the right thing to do. A person’s legacy is based on what kind of moral compass they lived by. I am incredibly thankful to have multiple role models that have taught me so many valuable lessons. My dad has passed down his principles to me just like his father did with him, and his father did for him. I’m proud of the legacy they have left at UMB.

I’m not saying we are perfect. We have certainly made mistakes. But our guiding principles remain strong and our commitment to doing what’s right will not waver.

Today, I had the opportunity to open the Nasdaq. The moment represented not only a commemoration of UMB’s success, but a celebration of a free market system and the positive impact banking has in America. It was a moment to pause and appreciate all that UMB has done over the last 100 years and what the individual associates and customers have meant to the company. It was also an opportunity to envision the next 100 years. We have a lot of work to do to repair the public’s trust in our industry and reestablish the benefits the financial industry provide our economy and our society.

Thank you to all of our customers, associates and communities for an amazing 100 years! We look forward to another 100 years of providing our customers with the same high level support, stability and integrity that you’ve come to expect from us. And I look forward to interacting with you all on this blog!

Mr. Kemper is the chairman and chief executive officer of UMB Financial Corporation and UMB Bank, n.a. He joined UMB in 1997. Mr. Kemper is active in both civic and philanthropic endeavors. One of the causes he is most passionate about is the arts. He currently serves as a trustee and executive committee member for the Denver Art Museum and is a past board member for The Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City.

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